Atlas / Comparisons / US Democratic Socialism vs Maoism
US Democratic Socialism and Maoism
Measured distance across six axes
Opposed programmes with little shared ground. No axis places them within three points of each other. They diverge by eight points or more on AU, ID, CH.
Axis by axis
| Axis | DSA, Sanders wing | Mao Zedong Thought | Gap | Reading | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EC · Economic organisation | −06 | −10 | 4 | Differs | Real difference, but not the dividing line. |
| CU · Social and cultural order | −08 | −02 | 6 | Differs | Real difference, but not the dividing line. |
| AU · Organisation of power | −04 | +10 | 14 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| SC · Scale of decision | +03 | +09 | 6 | Differs | Real difference, but not the dividing line. |
| ID · Rule of membership | −08 | +04 | 12 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| CH · Method and tempo | −04 | +10 | 14 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
Each axis runs from −10 to +10; the distance is the straight-line separation across all six at once, out of a maximum of 49.0. How the scoring works →
The evidence behind the widest gaps
A distance figure is worth nothing unless the scores behind it can be checked. These are the artefacts supporting the axes that separate these two most.
DSA, Sanders wing · AU −04
Coded −4: strongly pro-democratisation of existing institutions rather than concentration.
- Programme textCommitments to abolish the electoral college, expand voting rights and end the filibuster.
Mao Zedong Thought · AU +10
At the ceiling, with the distinctive feature that the party's own institutions were destroyed from above and below.
- Documented act or statuteThe head of state was purged and died in detention in 1969 without trial.
DSA, Sanders wing · ID −08
Coded −8: among the most universalist positions of any organisation in the dataset.
- Programme textCommitments to decriminalise border crossing and to extend labour rights regardless of status.
Mao Zedong Thought · ID +04
Coded moderately positive: class background was hereditary in practice and determined life chances.
- ScholarshipClass labels assigned in the land reform were inherited and governed schooling, marriage and employment for decades.
What this comparison does not establish
Proximity means similarity of stated position. It carries no claim about competence, circumstance, scale of operation, or what either organisation actually did to the people under it. Two organisations can sit close together and produce entirely different histories, because those things are not on any axis and could not be.
US Democratic Socialism
1982– · United States
Universal public provision funded by taxing concentrated wealth, achieved entirely through elections and unions.
Maoism
1949–1976 · China
Peasant-based revolution, continuous class struggle after the seizure of power, permanent mobilisation against the party's own institutions.
Distance is not the whole answer. Two organisations can sit the same distance apart for entirely different reasons, and the reason is the content of any claim about them. Open the comparison in the atlas to weight the axes yourself.
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